In this Section

Shannon Scott

Werewolves, circuses, film noir detectives, and femme fatales--these are the themes of the English courses I teach. Each class is an exploration of lives lived on the edge of a tightrope or a knife, in the shadows of a sideshow tent or the silhouette of a smoking gun. What I love about teaching these topics is that no two classes are ever the same--new experiences, new texts and films, and, most importantly, new blood.

Days of Week:

Time of Day:

Location:

Course Registration Number:

Credit Hours:

4 Credit Hours

Instructor:

Shannon F. Scott

This course explores food as a cultural metaphor, as a means to connect, create, and sustain family and tradition. It is also a venue to examine history through a culinary lens. In this class we question our assumptions about how food is grown, raised and prepared. What is organic? What is “junk”? Gourmet? Who decides? Who has access to food? Where and what are “food deserts”? There is also a community component, involving field trips to local eateries, work with BrightSide, and a drive for local food shelves. Fiction for this course may include: THE MISTRESS OF SPICES by Chitra Divakaruni, MY YEAR OF MEATS by Ruth Ozeki, Laura Esquivel’s LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE, CHOP CHOP by Simon Wroe, or NUMBER ONE CHINESE RESTAURANT by Lillian Li. The texts, along with the issues discussed in class, will range from the personal to the political: from essays by Michael Pollan and Vandana Shiva, to poetic odes from THE HUNGRY EAR, to personal accounts of Julia Childs’ challenges as a female chef, to French chef Auguste Escoffier’s connection to food and war, to contemporary accusations of “food pornography” and “gluttony” leveled at The Food Network. The writing load for this course is a minimum of 15 pages of formal revised writing. This course satisfies the Writing Across the Curriculum Writing Intensive requirement.

Days of Week:

Time of Day:

Location:

Course Registration Number:

Credit Hours:

4 Credit Hours

Instructor:

Shannon F. Scott

This course explores food as a cultural metaphor, as a means to connect, create, and sustain family and tradition. It is also a venue to examine history through a culinary lens. In this class we question our assumptions about how food is grown, raised and prepared. What is organic? What is “junk”? Gourmet? Who decides? Who has access to food? Where and what are “food deserts”? There is also a community component, involving field trips to local eateries, work with BrightSide, and a drive for local food shelves. Fiction for this course may include: THE MISTRESS OF SPICES by Chitra Divakaruni, MY YEAR OF MEATS by Ruth Ozeki, Laura Esquivel’s LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE, CHOP CHOP by Simon Wroe, or NUMBER ONE CHINESE RESTAURANT by Lillian Li. The texts, along with the issues discussed in class, will range from the personal to the political: from essays by Michael Pollan and Vandana Shiva, to poetic odes from THE HUNGRY EAR, to personal accounts of Julia Childs’ challenges as a female chef, to French chef Auguste Escoffier’s connection to food and war, to contemporary accusations of “food pornography” and “gluttony” leveled at The Food Network. The writing load for this course is a minimum of 15 pages of formal revised writing. This course satisfies the Writing Across the Curriculum Writing Intensive requirement.

Days of Week:

Time of Day:

Location:

Course Registration Number:

Credit Hours:

4 Credit Hours

Instructor:

Shannon F. Scott

Many fans, critics, and creators agree that we are living in a Golden Age of Horror. From new fiction by Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, Grady Hendrix, and Tiphanie Yanique, to new films such as GET OUT (Jordan Peele 2017), A QUIET PLACE (Krasinski 2018), and HEREDITARY (Aster 2018), the genre is proving to be finely crafted, highly literary and character driven. In other words, horror in the twenty-first century is much more than slasher films, body gore, splatterpunk, and jump scares. The horror genre explores the human condition through the emotion of fear—fear of pain, disease, isolation, of being lost, consumed, or prey to supernatural forces. However, horror also teaches us how to handle those fears. According to writer Ruthanna Emrys, “Horror as a genre is built around one truth: that the world is full of fearful things. But the best horror tells us more. It tells us how to live with being afraid.” This course explores horror from early tales like Bluebeard, to Gothic classics by Poe, Stoker, and Stevenson in the nineteenth century, to American cinema’s Universal Studios monster films. The overview will also include the rise of horror comics in the 1950s, selected works by Shirley Jackson, film adaptations of horror novels in the late 1960s and 1970s, such as ROSEMARY’S BABY (Polanski 1968) and THE EXORCIST (Friedkin 1973), to contemporary works by Paul Tremblay, Koji Suzuki, Neil Gaiman, and Stephen King. Finally, the course will encourage creative exploration and publication with an emphasis on burgeoning as well as ongoing horror magazines, anthologies, and small presses like Crystal Lake Publishing, Fangoria, The Black Room Manuscripts, and Undertow Publications. The writing load for this course is a minimum of 15 pages of formal revised writing. This course satisfies the WAC Writing Intensive requirement.

Days of Week:

Time of Day:

Location:

Course Registration Number:

Credit Hours:

4 Credit Hours

Instructor:

Shannon F. Scott

Many fans, critics, and creators agree that we are living in a Golden Age of Horror. From new fiction by Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, Grady Hendrix, and Tiphanie Yanique, to new films such as GET OUT (Jordan Peele 2017), A QUIET PLACE (Krasinski 2018), and HEREDITARY (Aster 2018), the genre is proving to be finely crafted, highly literary and character driven. In other words, horror in the twenty-first century is much more than slasher films, body gore, splatterpunk, and jump scares. The horror genre explores the human condition through the emotion of fear—fear of pain, disease, isolation, of being lost, consumed, or prey to supernatural forces. However, horror also teaches us how to handle those fears. According to writer Ruthanna Emrys, “Horror as a genre is built around one truth: that the world is full of fearful things. But the best horror tells us more. It tells us how to live with being afraid.” This course explores horror from early tales like Bluebeard, to Gothic classics by Poe, Stoker, and Stevenson in the nineteenth century, to American cinema’s Universal Studios monster films. The overview will also include the rise of horror comics in the 1950s, selected works by Shirley Jackson, film adaptations of horror novels in the late 1960s and 1970s, such as ROSEMARY’S BABY (Polanski 1968) and THE EXORCIST (Friedkin 1973), to contemporary works by Paul Tremblay, Koji Suzuki, Neil Gaiman, and Stephen King. Finally, the course will encourage creative exploration and publication with an emphasis on burgeoning as well as ongoing horror magazines, anthologies, and small presses like Crystal Lake Publishing, Fangoria, The Black Room Manuscripts, and Undertow Publications. The writing load for this course is a minimum of 15 pages of formal revised writing. This course satisfies the WAC Writing Intensive requirement.